Finishing up its teardown of the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro, iFixit on Monday noted that the computer has bigger battery and speaker components, which appear to have come without an increase in overall weight.

The system has upgraded from a five-cell, 49.2 watt-hour battery to a 58 watt-hour six-cell part, the repair firm said. The battery is indeed slightly heavier, up to 232.7 grams (8.2 ounces) versus 196.7 (6.9 ounces). Updated speakers are both "longer and narrower," to the point that they bump up against the logic board.

To compensate, Apple appears to have cut some mass off of the top case, iFixit indicated.

The teardown mostly illustrates expected features of the Pro, such as its T2 co-processor for functions like "Hey Siri," security, and boot operations. One other point of interest however is its modified power adapter, model A1947, which has more shielding as well as added impact-resistant foam, at the expense of switching from a metal USB-C port to plastic.

The Pro is as hard as ever to repair, with a soldered processor and memory, and the upper case -- including the battery, keyboard, and speakers -- forming a single unit. The one significant improvement is said to lie in the trackpad, which can be removed by extracting several Torx screws.

Apple's new Pros have a variety of upgrades over 2017 models beyond standard processor and memory upgrades. These include Bluetooth 5.0, and the first use of True Tone color balancing on a Mac.

...love the performance upgrades, still miss user adjustable ram and storage - heck even user swappable & replaceable batteries for those long days...

With the USB-C power delivery, there is hardly any reason to have swappable internal batteries. There are several external battery packs available that can extend workable battery life quite a bit.
As for user replaceable ram and storage, I do wish it was still available, but I can understand Apple's reasons for doing away with it. And probably 95%+ users never actually took advantage of it anyway.

I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t modify the exterior of their products when they refresh/update, even slightly, to show that this is a new model with new stuff inside. The opposite of what car makers do - many manufactures tweak the grill, wheels, head lights, etc. and the innards are identical. The outside is what people notice!

...love the performance upgrades, still miss user adjustable ram and storage - heck even user swappable & replaceable batteries for those long days...

No way to swappable batteries. Yes to RAM and storage though but so far, there's no slot that a ram chip can be fitted in an ultra-thin profile. PC manufacturers decided it's cheaper and better to have robotics soldier RAM into motherboard while making it completely slim. Same with SSD. So, the days of modular laptop are over. It's not going to happen anymore.

Everyone talks this and that about new 2018 MBP but if there is not enough complains, push back for Apple not offering Function Keys MBP than Apple will assume no one cares and Apple will kill it. One that happens than it's too late to make your voice heard. .

Everyone talks this and that about new 2018 MBP but if there is not enough complains, push back for Apple not offering Function Keys MBP than Apple will assume no one cares and Apple will kill it. One that happens than it's too late to make your voice heard. .

There weren't too many complaints apparently, the MBP's with function keeps only sold to 1 or 48 MBP buyers. That told Apple everything they need about function keys.

Everyone talks this and that about new 2018 MBP but if there is not enough complains, push back for Apple not offering Function Keys MBP than Apple will assume no one cares and Apple will kill it. One that happens than it's too late to make your voice heard. .

Well, first of all: Apple does offer a model with physical function keys. More than one, actually, at present.

Secondly, all the touchbar models can switch to function keys at one touch.

As much as people wanted to bitch about Apple not releasing new MBP's I think we can see why now. They did some re-engineering of the internals and keyboard. That isn't something you just do in a matter of a couple of months. At least this is part of the reason. If it was just a simple slap a different CPU/GPU inside it then sure maybe we would have seen something sooner.

This just goes back to Apple isn't just sitting around with their thumbs up their asses and purposely not releasing new Macs like some think. They ARE doing something, most likely with each and every model they sell now. I'd like to think that its pretty safe to say when a new Mac mini arrives it won't just be a new CPU/GPU inside of it. Same goes for iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, etc, etc. This shit simply takes time to get out the door for one reason or another whether its waiting on the proper CPU that suits what Apple wants to accomplish with a particular model, and/or whether its re-engineering/redesigning something hardware and/or software.

Everyone talks this and that about new 2018 MBP but if there is not enough complains, push back for Apple not offering Function Keys MBP than Apple will assume no one cares and Apple will kill it. One that happens than it's too late to make your voice heard. .

There weren't too many complaints apparently, the MBP's with function keeps only sold to 1 or 48 MBP buyers. That told Apple everything they need about function keys.

While I couldn't care less about Fn keys or not, that is a very misleading stat. The only models you could get with Fn keys were the base, low-end models, and not only were the specs lower, you also got half as many I/O ports. I'd buy the Touch Bar model too at the point, even if I preferred the Fn keys over it.

As much as people wanted to bitch about Apple not releasing new MBP's I think we can see why now. They did some re-engineering of the internals and keyboard. That isn't something you just do in a matter of a couple of months. At least this is part of the reason. If it was just a simple slap a different CPU/GPU inside it then sure maybe we would have seen something sooner.

This just goes back to Apple isn't just sitting around with their thumbs up their asses and purposely not releasing new Macs like some think. They ARE doing something, most likely with each and every model they sell now. I'd like to think that its pretty safe to say when a new Mac mini arrives it won't just be a new CPU/GPU inside of it. Same goes for iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, etc, etc. This shit simply takes time to get out the door for one reason or another whether its waiting on the proper CPU that suits what Apple wants to accomplish with a particular model, and/or whether its re-engineering/redesigning something hardware and/or software.

Also don't forget that Apple maintains and optimizes ALL drivers and ALL software optimizations. It's a lot easier for, say, Dell to slap a new CPU in their computer and call it a day when they know Intel and other manufacturers will handle the drivers and Microsoft will handle the software.

Everyone talks this and that about new 2018 MBP but if there is not enough complains, push back for Apple not offering Function Keys MBP than Apple will assume no one cares and Apple will kill it. One that happens than it's too late to make your voice heard. .

Well, first of all: Apple does offer a model with physical function keys. More than one, actually, at present.

Secondly, all the touchbar models can switch to function keys at one touch.

Your post seems whiny and misinformed.

Agree 100%. I would also like to see just how many people complaining about the lack of Fn keys actually used the Fn keys as anything other than brightness/volume/music control buttons.

But I wonder if there's a cost to user for carving the top casing (which is what gives the MBP its structure and which is the best in the industry) to both make room for the battery and to keep the weight the same will have any ill effects.

Was Apple using too much aluminum before which reduced how large the battery could be (which includes space other components could use, as well as space for cooling) and the ability to reduce weight, or did they make other changes? For instance, is the aluminum a stronger alloy, not unlike what they had to do with the iPhone 6S series over the iPhone 6S series?

PS: The battery did increase in weight, but did it increase in weight exactly as you'd expect for the additional Whrs, or is there also an increase in battery density to be noted.

Everyone talks this and that about new 2018 MBP but if there is not enough complains, push back for Apple not offering Function Keys MBP than Apple will assume no one cares and Apple will kill it. One that happens than it's too late to make your voice heard. .

Well, first of all: Apple does offer a model with physical function keys. More than one, actually, at present.

Secondly, all the touchbar models can switch to function keys at one touch.

Your post seems whiny and misinformed.

Agree 100%. I would also like to see just how many people complaining about the lack of Fn keys actually used the Fn keys as anything other than brightness/volume/music control buttons.

It depends on the user profile. I own a software company. My graphical designers like the touchbar because it is offering an added value for the graphical tools they use. My back end developers don't like the touchbar. The programs they use (IDE's, command line, ...) make heavily use of function keys and of the escape key. Using the escape and function keys on a touchbar model is a bit a PITA due to the lack of haptic feedback.

It is a pity that Apple has only 32GB RAM on the touchbar models, while it are my back end developers which need the 32GB RAM option to run their docker containers. So the back end developers are using a Dell XPS 15 with 32GB RAM, running Ubuntu. If Apple would offer a high end function key MPB, this might change.